Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Fall of Cyberton Review Thing

I liked War for Cybertron, but even I
was not immune to a lot of its problems. The gunmetal grey scenery
for 90% of the game. The endless corridor gunplay ad nauseum. The
lack of a compulsive story. No Grimlock. I liked it at the time, but
I even acknowledged it was fueled by nostalgia for a favorite
franchise of mine, a nostalgia constantly tickled by references. The
fixes done in Fall of Cybertron go above and beyond clouding mistakes
and frustrating segments with in-jokes – it's great. Actually,
legitimately, great.

I think the best example of the
improvement is in the first level, where (and I didn't like this
initially) you are treated to a Bumblebee-centric tutorial, midway
through the Nemesis' jacking and boarding of the Ark. Right off the
bat it's obvious that High Moon has gotten a better idea for dynamic
action sequences. Bumblebee gains control of his functions one by one
in the tutorial, and wades through the war-torn battlezone, stopped
by bad guys, and forcing you get to Optimus in time.

It's explosive. It's completely insane.
It's perfect. High Moon has learned – or maybe just had the time
and money to make – that the best way to convey war is to make
things happen that are far bigger than you. Transformers named and
nameless will die through the course of the game, because Cybertron
is becoming a big mess of despair, death, and pain.

Let me apply context and say that no,
Transformers has not jumped the shark and tried to convey war-is-hell
drama through embarrassingly awful plot deaths. Nor has it tried to
convey a serious story through characterization and development.
Which seems like an odd departure since the trailers were setting up
to do exactly that, but we can ignore the advertising for the moment,
even if it was kind of awesome. It is, on the whole, still a cartoon
about big robots.

But the story and presentation has
grown up significantly – the characters are better fleshed out, all
of their backstories and personalities make sense, and best of all,
everyone has their own actions happening simultaneously while the
story takes place. It's like a well put-together movie, worth a
trillion more than Michael Bay's obnoxious military hardware
wank-fest with teenagers running around acting relevant.

It's not like War for Cybertron, where
you take control of one unit doing a thing while everyone else does
fuck all. The intro chapter establishes that the Ark is under
constant Decepticon assault, and it was put at risk by Grimlock's
mysterious abandonment of his defense post. With Prime occupied, Jazz
and Cliffjumper take off to investigate. Then, later, when Grimlock
shows up, it explains everything, including how he got his dinosaur
form on a planet with no dinosaurs, where he's been all that time,
and the like.

The plot is incredibly cohesive in how
it swaps between factions and characters, but you're never left
wondering what the hell they're doing. It's established firmly why
this new character is in control, and after some snappy dialogue, you
get a strong sense of understanding of Cliffjumper and Jazz's
relationship and personalities. And that's just what I can give you
that doesn't spoil lategame events.

It's a testament to this that I say
High Moon has really understood changes of pace. From the explosive
tutorial, you control Prime as he rushes to keep the Ark safe from
Decepticon assaults, and awakens Metroxplex, a transformer the size
of a city. After one of the most satisfying sequences of melee
attacks in action game history, the game downshifts, and you play as
the duo investigating a Decepticon outpost. Cliffjumper cloaks and is
small enough to fit into hidey-hole shafts, creating a new stealth
sequence.

It's hard to put into words just how
great it feels to go from an explosive action sequence, with Optimus
Prime barreling through Decepticons by the truckloads, only to later
quietly creep from baddie to baddie, executing City of Rust guards
with a tap of the button, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins style. Once they
start including rocket-launcher armed 'Cons with stealth-tracking
scanners, it actually gets hard, too.

And just after that, Cliffjumper gets
himself into a pickle and you swap off to Jazz, who is a mechanical
Spider-Man with his wrist-mounted tether. After a few action
sequences, the game opens up into a multi-tiered shootout platformer
sequence and lets you zip from ledge to ledge, unloading sniper rifle
rounds into enemies. And that's just the first few levels – Fall of
Cybertron keeps shifting gears, giving you new people to play with
and building towards something bigger. And by the time the ending
comes, they've trained you how to do everything in the game thus far,
which makes it all the more satisfying as it hops from objective to
objective.

The presentation and music is what sets
it the most apart – swelling orchestral pieces with bombastic
drums, a reverbing bass, and intense latin chorus sets you up for
exactly what you are in for.

The big issue with War for Cybertron's
vehicle modes was, aside from the occasional moment, that there was
no real reason to transform other than to move faster. Ordinarily,
the inclusion of a sprint mode would kill any reason to change your
mode, aside from having a different gun to fire. But Fall of
Cybertron surprised me again by, instead of changing the game
mechanics, just put you into different environments.

Cliffjumper, as mentioned, can go to
car mode to slip into small tunnels. But when it's a Decepticon
mission to sabotage a large carrier, you take control of first
Vortex, who's working to destroy the bridge ahead of the carrier, and
Swindle, who assaults the ground forces to destroy the tank's wheels.
Vortex has to zip around from the air then to the ground and destroy
defensive outposts. Then, Swindle fights Autobots, while constantly
swapping between vehicle and robot mode to keep pace with the huge
moving vehicle.

I'm not a fan of forgiving games just
for having a good sequel, but it's really amazing that the developers
learned so well how to present and deliver a game. Not just a generic
shooter, but one that capitalizes on the strengths it has and stands
apart due to the experience it delivers.

That's not even to mention how they
managed to make the game look great. Cybertron, war ravaged and torn
apart, shines and glows like a city with its dingy parts sticking out
terribly. Cliffjumper and Jazz's exploration into the Sea of Rust
evokes memories of the desert level from every shooter before it, but
is mercifully short. And, after that, an organic squishy level takes
place when they stumble on some of Shockwave's organic experiments in
underground caves. Each level – and multiplayer map – is colorful
and varied, with all sorts of red, blue, green, and purple. Even from the few screens I've collected here you can see how bright everything is.

There's a lot of good here, and even
stuff I never touched on – there's more ammo, each gun feels more
distinct and useful, and all the upgrades make the guns feel stronger
in their attributes rather than just +10 damage. I've found the SMG
and Megatron's cannon are some of the more destructive guns in the
game, and limiting you to one conventional gun and one heavy means
you need to be more careful on the shots you take with bigger guns.
Sure, Megatron can one-shot half the baddies in the game, and the
unique upgrade for it is amazing,
but if you're a terrible shot, what gun are you going to switch to,
your RPG? Your chaingun?

Further,
the online is actually great. Multiplayer suffered from lack of
balance, lack of customization, and the crummy health system. Most of
those have been fixed, and the maps expanded, meaning everyone has a
place. A Scientist jet has the advantage of a heal, air control,
sentry turrets, pseudo-radar, and homing rockets, but their health is
extremely low, and they only start with a few crummy guns.
Infiltrators are basically spies, with absurd speeds, cloaking, and
sniper rifles. Destroyers are Prime and Megatron wreckers with a
hover ability and a ground slam, a force field, and big guns. Titans,
as the name implies, are big, slow brutalizers with the whirlwind
spin attack. Each class is exploitable. And, best yet, you can redeco
any of them to be your favorite Transformer, or mod them to be weird
Frankenstein versions of them combined with others. That's not
even touching on Escalation.

It's
not a perfect game. As I mentioned, there's not a lot of
character development, which is unfortunate as I was hoping for a
political fallout from the new Prime's controversial decision to
leave their home. Further, some of the nicer touches from WfC are
gone. The hard, mechanical way the Bots and Cons transformed into
the turrets is sorely missed.
The game also has an annoying habit of sticking you with a fragile
Scientist character like Starscream or Vortex and send three
shotgun-bearing Bulkhead-lookalike Autobots your way, sending you
back to the loading screen once more.

But as far as
video games? I can recommend it not just to fans of the franchise,
not just to fans of shooters, but even to those who disliked War for
Cybertron. It's not breaking any ground with story, but it's
competently told and masterfully directed, and that's all I really
needed from a robot shooter.